JOURNEY Classic "Don't Stop Believin'" Officially Declared "Biggest Song Of All Time"

The RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) recently reported that the Journey classic, "Don’t Stop Believin'", is now an 18-times platinum-certified single. According to Forbes, this means that between pure sales and other forms of consumption–namely streaming–the song has shifted at least 18 million equivalent units in the United States alone, making it the biggest song of all time.

The announcement that "Don’t Stop Believin'" had reached such an impressive milestone came as something of a surprise. Before this latest honor, the song had only ever been certified up to quadruple platinum status. It hit that mark in May 2013. In the more than decade since then, the RIAA hadn’t bestowed any additional certifications on the hit, but clearly it was accruing millions of sales and equivalent units shifted behind the scenes.

Read the complete Forbes report here. 

"Don't Stop Believin'" was released in October 1981 as the second single from Journey's seventh studio album, Escape. The song reached #8 on Billboard's Mainstream Rock chart, and #9 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.

In November 2023, AXS TV shared video of former Journey frontman, Steve Perry, talking with Dan Rather about joining the band, how the group contributed to the development of power ballads, the massive success of "Don't Stop Believin'", and how the song ended up in the series finale of The Sopranos on The Big Interview.

On writing the Journey classic "Don't Stop Believin'"

Perry: "I told John Cain (keyboards) I wanted something with quarters (quarter notes). I've always liked certain songs that had a beginning with quarters: 'Penny Lane' (The Beatles) had quarters on the piano, 'One' by Three Dog Night had quarters on the piano... we never had a song with that. He starts playing some changes, I start singing, and that's how it got launched into this whole thing. Then, John Cain and I got together later and wrote the lyrics. It was just another song like the rest of them that we believed in - not to make a joke, but we did - and that one just has a life of its own."